GAZA: One year after the Zionist entity unleashed war in Gaza, the Palestinian territory is unrecognizable and its residents are exhausted by displacement and shortages, with no end in sight. "It felt like the first day of the war all over again”, said Khaled Al-Hawajri, 46, as the Zionist forces bombarded his Gaza neighborhood on Monday.
"Last night we were terrorized by the bombardments from quadcopters and tank shells,” said Hawajri, who has been displaced 10 times with his family of seven in the past year. "We have endured a whole year in the north under bombardment, terror, and fear in the hearts of my children,” he said, adding he had staying in Gaza’s devastated north because "there is no safe place in the entire Strip”.
On Monday, Gaza City was barely recognizable, ravaged by relentless air strikes and fighting. Residents walked along sand-covered streets stripped of pavements, with buildings either destroyed or left without facades, while piles of rubble littered the roads. With fuel in short supply and expensive, car traffic was almost nonexistent. Most people walked, cycled or used donkey carts.
"There is no electricity or petroleum products. Even firewood is not available. Food is almost non-existent”, said 64-year-old Hussam Mansour, speaking from a street in Gaza City, surrounded by piles of rubble and sand. The United Nations says 92 percent of Gaza’s main roads and more than 84 percent of its health facilities have been damaged or destroyed in the war.
Long war
Mansour and his sons have all been displaced, and his apartment building was destroyed in an air strike. "Now when I walk the streets, I do not recognize them anymore,” he said. Like Hawajri and Mansour, Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have endured hardship, with no signs of relief, even after the Zionist entity said it reassigned divisions to expand its war into Lebanon. About 90 percent of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once, the United Nations says.
"Last night was one of the hardest nights of the war, as if the war had just begun!” said 46-year-old Muhammad al-Muqayyid, displaced from the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. "I never imagined the war would last this long,” he said. "A year has gone and we have seen every kind of suffering — disease, hunger, danger and loss.”
The Zionist military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,909 people, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the territory’s health ministry. The entity launched its attack after Hamas led an operation in the entity. The Hamas operation and the aftermath, where the Zionist military directed its fire at its own people who were held captive by Hamas, led to the deaths of 1,200, most of them civilians, according to Zionist figures.
A year on, the Zionist entity has yet to achieve one of its alleged main objectives: securing the return of all those taken hostage on October 7, 2023. Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 97 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 who the Zionist military says are dead. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday to bring back all those held captive but thousands of protestors, families of those held captive and world leaders have criticized the Zionist government for not doing enough to reach a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal. Meanwhile, the Zionist entity continues to bombard Gaza.
"There was a sudden ground invasion by tanks, and people were rushing out of their homes without taking anything with them, just carrying their children and running through the streets with fire and shells raining down on them”, Muqayyid said, referring to a Zionist military operation in northern Gaza on Sunday. — Agencies